Do You Daydream?

First Published 19 August 2021

I ended up going down a rabbit hole last year on this topic.  Bear with me here…  I don’t think I have ever really daydreamed… so this makes visualising, especially when it comes to meditation a real challenge.  Other than in my dreams where I do see pictures (I think… lets face it, I’m asleep so I don’t know for sure!) I have only one memory of seeing a picture in my minds eye – strangely enough it was during my first ever session of Kinesiology and it’s never happened again since.  But this isn’t a story about Kinesiology this week 😉

A friend posted a link to an article and discussion about whether or not people have an inner voice – which I thought was really interesting (still haven’t worked out if I have one of those – it’s nice and quiet in my head! That’s probably why I talk so much…😂).  But what was more interesting for me was the link at the bottom of the article that mentioned whether or not a person has a mind’s eye. Here’s the article on Facebook that I was directed to.  Well this blew my mind! It confirmed that my mind’s eye is blind!  I always knew I was a bit different and by the figures I’ve seen I’m about the same as 2% ish of the population so not quite unique but not far off it – although not all of my experiences were the same as this guy’s so maybe there is some level of uniqueness…?

I spent the next month or so asking anyone I met up with (the month before lockdown struck so these conversations took place in the real world!) if they could visualise.  My mind was blown yet again when upon asking a couple of ladies I had coffee with if they could visualise a beach – they did so without closing their eyes!  I was stunned!  Surely they are now hallucinating?  Do people really see things that aren’t there?  And that’s the norm? Huh?

So, why am I telling you this?  I discovered this ‘phenomena’ called Aphantasia when I was about 2 months into training in hypnotherapy.  I joined a couple of discussion groups about it on Facebook and a lot of people seem to have discovered they have Aphantasia when they had gone to see a hypnotherapist and been told that they couldn’t be hypnotised as if they were ‘broken’!  Well – I can confirm this is simply not true.  The rest of my classmates were almost as fascinated as I was and, from what I could tell, were really keen to partner up with me, to make sure that they were able to use the right language to get me in to trance even though I can’t visualise.  And I found a willing ‘subject’ outside of my class who had one of these ‘you can’t be hypnotised’ experiences to make sure I could do it too!  And I am pleased to confirm that was a success and I feel that she is still benefitting from the session we had – she even wrote me a lovely recommendation.

No matter how your brain is wired, I can see no reason why you couldn’t benefit from hypnotherapy – it works for a huge range of issues, challenges and helps work towards goals, and I promise not to make you bark like a chicken… If you would like to try it or even just know more about it, please do book in for a zoffee chat – as it’s on zoom you will have to bring your own coffee (cake optional), but the chat comes for free 😉.